Nightly Excursions, Sickness, and Apologies
by Lineoflights
Summary: In which two girls fall sick at the exact same time, Fate feels an overwhelming sense of guilt, and everybody else comes to what may be the obvious conclusion. NanoFate


Because sometimes you just need some NanoFate.

**Disclaimer: Do not own.**

* * *

><p>Fate groaned as she blew her nose for what had to have been the hundredth time that morning. She was sick. There was no other way of putting it. Ever since she had awoken, the blonde had been feeling rather off, and a quick check of her temperature had confirmed her suspicions.<p>

It was almost time to get ready for school. Slowly, Fate dragged herself off of the bed and began trotting over to her uniform. Ignoring the fact that her legs could barely hold her up, the red-eyed girl slowly finished her preparations. She had barely stepped onto last night's fresh snow when a voice accosted her from behind.

"Hold it. Where do you think you're going, Fate?"

"Ahh, Arf. I was just headed to school." Fate quickly turned around and flashed a smile. This wasn't good, "Can't be late, you know? I should get going now-"

"Not in that state, you aren't."

"I-It's not that bad, honest," the blonde didn't even try to ask how the dog had figured it out. Her familiar had always been rather good at detecting when something was off.

"Fate. Get in." Arf growled. Fate winced. Despite the fact that her familiar was much smaller compared to before, Arf's voice still carried that tone of authority that made Fate question who the master between the two of them really was. Moments later, the mage found herself before her mother, who was constantly switching between scolding her daughter and fretting over her.

"In any case, this is all because of your nightly escapades, you know," At the sound of Chrono's voice, Fate turned and glared. There was an unspoken agreement between the two to avoid bringing that up, especially in front of their mother. "What? Don't look at me like that. She already knows."

Anger turned to shock and embarrassment as Fate hesitantly turned towards her parent. The all-knowing smile present on the woman's face made the girl's face flush.

"Dear, I do have a lot of experience with magic, you know. It wasn't that hard to figure out what you and Nanoha were up to." Fate's blush intensified as Lindy continued talking. She had always thought she was being rather stealthy at night. "But your brother is right. It was snowing rather hard, last night, what were you thinking?"

"I..." in truth, Fate really hadn't been thinking much. She had been struck by an impulsive need to see her best friend and decided to invite her out flying last night. Thankfully, the blonde was spared from the need to come up with a reasonable explanation for her actions by a sudden surge of coughs that sprung up from her throat.

"Never mind, you should get back to bed and rest." Lindy smiled affectionately towards her daughter. Fate, still a little flushed from the sudden revelation that her mother was well aware of what had been going on at night, decided to take the opportunity to escape. "We can get back to this later." Uh oh.

* * *

><p>Fate groaned as she blew her nose for what had to have been the thousandth time that morning. She was bored. Taking a quick glance at the clock, the girl noticed that it was still around noon. After Lindy had rushed her into bed, she had fallen asleep rather quickly. But now, after having awoken once again, she found herself facing dull pangs of boredom. For a moment, she considered trying to head outside and taking a walk to get some fresh air, but a quick check of their mental link showed that Arf was standing outside the door, keeping watch. There went that idea.<p>

Fate shifted around, trying to find a comfortable position to lie down and fall back to sleep. As she closed her eyes, however, her phone began chiming. Taking the noisy object in her hand, Fate took a quick glance at the caller before lazily answering the phone.

"Arisa-chan? What is it? Shouldn't you be in class right now?"

"Fate-chan! Are you okay?" Even over the phone, Arisa's voice clearly revealed how worried she was.

"Don't worry. I'm just a little sick."

"Are you sure? I mean both you and Nanoha come down with something at the same time. It's a little suspicious, you know."

"What!? Nanoha!? Is she okay?" Fate yelled out violently.

"Y-yeah, I just finished calling her. Said she was just sick as well." Arisa replied, a little surprised by Fate's sudden reaction.

"Last night must have gotten to her too..." Oh no. This was all her fault. She shouldn't have invited Nanoha out at all last night. What a horrible friend she was. How would Nanoha ever forgive her? Would she ever? Had Fate destroyed their friendship forever? If so, then...

"L-Last nigh!? Fate! What were you two doing!?" Arisa's voice knocked Fate out of her train of thought. Right. She was still on the phone.

"Um... nothing. We just, err, uh, went out for a bit last night." Fate replied halfheartedly, still worried over the state of her friendship with a certain blue-eyed girl.

" 'Went out?' Fate, what exactly happened?" Arisa questioned hastily from the other side of the line, noticing the subtle way Fate had stumbled over her words just now.

"I'll, er, tell you some other time. It was embarrassing enough finding out that my mom knew about it. Bye."

"Lindy-san!? Fate, what-" Without giving the other girl a chance to finish her sentence, Fate hung up and placed the phone beside her with a sigh. How was she ever going to face Nanoha after this?

* * *

><p>"No way..." Arisa stared blankly at her phone, wondering if she had just imagined the conversation that had taken place. It had become a bit of a hot topic among their group, no, the entire class lately when Nanoha and Fate were finally going to stop dancing around obvious attraction they had for each other(but only when the duo wasn't around, of course). But had the two girls really... solidified their relationship like that?<p>

* * *

><p>"Arf, please! I have to go!" Fate pleaded, desperately. She had to go make up with Nanoha as soon as possible.<p>

"Fate, for the last time, you're sick!" Arf yelled out to her master. Just a little bit ago, the girl had come out of her room, making a mad dash for the stairs. Being the diligent and protective familiar she was, Arf had quickly blocked off the door, doing her best to stop the blonde from being reckless. For the last few minutes, the two had been arguing back and forth.

Whatever reply Fate was planning to give was suddenly cut off by a flurry of coughs. Feeling that she could no longer waste any time, the girl adopted a stoic expression and reached into her pocket. Solemnly, she pulled out her device, holding it up so the familiar could see well.

"Arf, I'm going," Fate declared, "please try to understand. Bardiche!"

Arf panicked. In her current state, using magic would be extremely taxing on Fate's body. Even in the best scenario, Fate would feel an extreme headache and exhaustion. If worst came to worst, she might collapse in the middle of the city. However, Arf wasn't sure how exactly to stop her master. The most obvious method was to simply stop her physically, but who knew what kind of damage that would inflict. As Bardiche began glowing, the familiar grit her teeth, getting ready to jump. It seemed she had no other choice.

"_Sir. Now sending transmission. Please wait paitently." _The two females stopped and stared. Bardiche let out a dull ring. Right. Phone calls. Those were still a thing that could be utilized. Bardiche rang again.

"_Master, incoming call. Shall I respond?" _From across the house, Fate heard something that sounded suspiciously like... Raising Heart?

"Ack! Raising Heart, shh!"

Fate ran. Ignoring the dull ache in her bones, she quickly arrived at her room, where she saw a certain brunette standing right next to an open window, looking somewhat embarrassed. "Ah, Fate-chan! It's not what it looks-"

"Nanoha!" Fate yelled, cutting off whatever Nanoha was going to say. The moment she got in range, Fate dove, embracing the brunette in her arms. The two of them landed on Fate's bed, with its owner on the verge of leaking tears. "Nanoha! I'm so sorry! Please don't hate me!"

While trying to fight back the burning sensation in her eyes and gain control the stream of words that were erupting from her mouth, Fate suddenly felt a gentle sensation on her lips. Pausing and opening her eyes, she noticed Nanoha's index finger right in front of her.

"Fate-chan. What's wrong?" Nanoha spoke with a smile. Fate broke down. Even now, face half clouded with tears, that angelic smile was still enough to melt her heart many times over.

"N-Nanoha. I'm sorry," Fate said, desperately fighting back what tears she could, "because I asked you out last night, you're sick. Oh no I'm so sorry please forgive me I didn't mean to-"

Another finger tap to the lips.

"Don't worry about it."

"Y-you're not mad at me?" Fate questioned hesitantly.

"Fate-chan," Nanoha began, a slight scowl appearing on her face, "if I didn't get mad at you for all those times you tried to shoot me down, why would I for something like that?"

Fate began to relax. The subject of their first few meetings was still a bit of a sensitive subject between the two, but she could see that her friend had a point.

"Besides, it's not your fault anyways. I like spending time with you. It's very precious to me."

At the blue-eyed girl's words, Fate felt her face flush once again.

"Nanoha." Fate called out, words leaving her mouth just as fast as they came to her head. "Nanoha. I, I..." oh god, what was she about to say? Red eyes locked with blue as Fate was unable to muster the willpower to stop her sentence. "I lov-"

Fate sneezed, knocking the two girls out of their trance. Quickly, the blonde pulled away, face redder than it had ever been that day. What... what just happened? Fate was confused. Was she really just about to...

"Ahaha. Seems like you're a little sick, huh?" Nanoha commented, pretending that she hadn't heard anything.

Many years of experience had made Fate very knowledgable of the brunette's facial expressions, so she could tell what Nanoha was up to quite quickly. Extremely thankful towards her friend's consideraion, Fate simply sat there awkwardly, unable to sort out the torrent of thoughts assaulting her. However, she was knocked out of her trance by a sound from the other side of the bed. Taking a quick glance, she noticed that the brunette was now lying down, sniffing her nose and coughing.

"Uuu. I guess it was a bit reckless to run the entire way here." Nanoha lamented as she slowly arose. "I guess I should be heading back now." Before she could move to the door, however, she felt a force pulling her back.

"Um..." Fate began shyly, tugging on the back of Nanoha's shirt, "you could rest here with me. I don't think you can make it back to your house."

"Are you sure? You might catch my sickness..." Nanoha trailed.

"O-Of course. I'm already sick in the first place. B-Besides, I l-like having you by my side." Fate replied, getting off the bed to pull open the covers and give them both a chance to climb in. She could still feel the blush in her face after her near confession earlier, and still couldn't gather the willpower to look her friend in the eye.

* * *

><p>"...So what do you think?" Arisa had given in. She knew that neither Nanoha or Fate would appreciate her leaking the contents of her call earlier, but she had to say <em>something<em>. Concentrating in class was impossible with _that_ hanging over her head. The moment school ended, Arisa ran over to Hayate and Suzuka and began spilling her guts.

"I don't know... you're probably just overthinking things." Suzuka mentioned reasonably. Knowing Nanoha and Fate, if they were going to make a move on each other, it would involve a lot of staring into each others eyes and sappy love confessions. Just randomly deciding to settle things in the middle of the night did not suit them at all.

"I agree. It's probably just Nanoha-chan and Fate-chan being all unintentionally suggestive like they normally are. Arisa-chan, your mind is a bit too dirty, don't you think?" Hayate pointed out. The glare she received in response could have killed a lesser creature. "Look, I'll try calling Fate. I'm sure it was just your imagination being overactive." Adeptly, the brown-haired girl pulled out her phone and dialed the lightning mage's number.

"_Hayate-chan? What is it?"_ Came Fate's voice after a few rings.

"Noooothing. Just checking up on you. Still feeling sick?"

"_Yeah, just a little."_

"Well then," Hayate suggested, "how about the three of us go visit you on the way back home?"

"_WHAT!?" _Fate's voice rang loudly over the phone. Slightly wincing in pain, Hayate had to distance the phone from her ear for a bit." _"T-there's no need to do that. Honestly."_

"Hmmmm? Fate-chan, what's wrong? You sound kind of flustered." Hayate said. Normally, the blonde was rather calm and controlled. She couldn't recall saying anything that would warrant such a reaction.

"_Fate-chan. Come back to bed..."_

Hayate paused. Had she just imagined that voice? It was a bit faint, but it sounded just like Nanoha.

"Fate-chan. Was that..."

"_GAH! Thanks Hayate, but I need to rest now! See you at school! Bye!"_

The trio simply stared at each other and blinked, unable to come up with any words as the buzz of a disconnected call hung in the background.

* * *

><p>"Nanoha... That was really mean." Fate complained as she climbed back into the bed.<p>

"Oh? What was so mean about it?"

"Uh, you, well, I mean, err, um..." Fate stumbled. She knew what exactly was wrong, but putting into words would be _far_ too embarrassing.

Caught in her panic, Fate was completely unaware of her surroundings. She didn't notice the small smile that Nanoha made and the giggle that escaped her lips. She didn't notice the brunette slowly inch closer and closer to her. She didn't notice the girl's face approaching her own. She did, however, notice the warm sensation that came once Nanoha's lips met her own.

"Make sure you rest well, Fate-chan." Nanoha spoke as she broke away, trying her best to keep her voice stable and calm. Without a further word, she lay down on the pillow and closed her eyes.

"Um... okay," Fate responded, still in shock over what just happened, "you too, Nanoha."

Before she could lay back down or raise any questions, however, Fate felt small prickle in her mind signaling the opening of a telepathy channel.

"_Fate-chan. Once we get better, you had better say it properly properly, okay?"_

"_...Okay."_

* * *

><p>I was considering drawing it out a bit longer and featuring things like "everybody else's reactions the next day," but I think this ending is good.<p>

Um... Please review?


End file.
